Africa: Post-conflict Stabilisation

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, has made a fine, knowledgeable and impressive maiden speech in your Lordships’ House today. When we recently had a conversation, I asked him on which issues he intended to concentrate his efforts. Immediately he mentioned his love of Africa, especially Malawi. As noble Lords would expect from a former teacher, he is passionate, as he said in his maiden speech, about the important role that education plays in the development of countries such as Malawi. The noble Lord brings distinguished service in the Scottish Parliament to your Lordships’ House. He has been MSP for the Motherwell and Wishaw constituency since 1999, becoming both leader of the Scottish Labour Party and the longest-serving First Minister from 2001 to 2007. He has many fine achievements to his credit but I single out his commitment to his promotion of an anti-sectarian agenda in Scotland, thereby tackling an age-old scar in Scottish society and culture. I pay tribute to him for that.

As the coalition Government ponder changes to the voting system, to which the noble Lord referred, and reflect on the required give and take of coalition politics, they could do a lot worse than study how the noble Lord successfully managed a Lib-Lab coalition north of the border. In an article he wrote recently, he gave 10 tips for making coalitions work. Perhaps it should be required reading for all new Ministers. He said in that article:

“The policy detail needs to be underpinned by a shared sense of purpose—and values. The coalition needs to be clear about what kind of country it is trying to build”.

Those are wise words. He went on to talk about the importance of political maturity and setting aside tribalism. Gordon Brown was well aware of the noble Lord’s talents, which is why he appointed him as the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Conflict Resolution Mechanisms, in which role he took a keen interest in conflict resolution in Africa. As First Minister, he pioneered the Scottish Government’s efforts to support development initiatives in Malawi, reflecting the historic ties which extend between Scotland and Malawi, going back to the time of David Livingstone. A co-operation agreement between Scotland and Malawi was signed in September 2005. As he has told us, he is an adviser to the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative in Malawi and Rwanda. In bringing this great experience of public affairs, and particularly of conflict resolution, to your Lordships' House, the noble Lord will undoubtedly make many distinguished and thoughtful contributions to our debates. It is with great pleasure that we all welcome the noble Lord among us today.

We are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, for giving us the opportunity to have this debate. In opening it, he referred to the Lord’s Resistance Army as being the greatest threat to the Democratic Republic of Congo. It could reasonably be argued that it is also the greatest threat to stability throughout the whole of the region. Only yesterday I met a young Ugandan woman who goes under the pseudonym of Juliet and was a member of the LRA. In a letter to the Prime Minister, which she is delivering today to Downing Street, she sets out her story. She says in the letter:

“When I was 12, I was abducted by rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army … I saw many children being killed … At 14, I was forced into a sexual relationship with a man who was above my age”.

She went on to say that, after the death of a baby in childbirth:

“I was lucky and managed to get away. I made it back to my family and got help to rebuild my life … When I was in the bush I missed school for 6 years but I always had the desire to go back to school”.

I promised Juliet that I would tell her story in your Lordships' House today. Her appeal now is for the LRA’s leaders to be brought to justice and for young women like her to be given a fresh chance in life, especially as regards education. I want to say more about the LRA, particularly as regards its role in the Democratic Republic of Congo—which was referred to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, and my noble friend Lady Cox—but also about the effect of its role operating out of northern Congo, particularly in Southern Sudan.

Fifty years ago, on 30 June 1960, Congo was granted its independence by Belgium. Within days, a military coup was under way and United Nations peacekeepers were dispatched there. They were the forerunners of today’s MONUC, the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world, which, from the beginning of this month, has been renamed MONUSCO. In 1960, the peacekeepers were followed by a procession of mercenaries and militias, frequently hired by western interests, especially mining companies. In the ensuing years, 6 million people have lost their lives in the DRC; it is Africa’s World War One.

When I visited the DRC in 2004 and published a report about the scale of the violence there, I talked about our apparent indifference to this haemorrhaging loss of life. I contended that the biggest obstacle to peace has been the control of easily appropriable and highly valuable natural resources by armed groups and national armies from as many as six neighbouring countries. The Congo has more diamonds, gold, cobalt, coltan and uranium—to name only some of its phenomenal assets—than any other country in Africa. In spite of a lamentable catalogue of crimes against humanity, the Congo probably remains Europe’s and America’s biggest supplier of uranium, coltan, cobalt and tin. For rebel groups and militia elites from neighbouring countries, these riches, rather than bringing the populace out of poverty, have become a source of obscene wealth. It serves their interests to encourage the sickeningly chaotic situation. Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda have all been beneficiaries.

The loss of life in these conflicts is incalculable, as is the cost in terms of social and human development. During the 15 years up until 2005, the cost of conflict throughout Africa was around $300 billion—equal to the money provided to Africa in aid during the same period.

Let us think about Sudan for a moment. I visited Southern Sudan during the civil war. Two million people lost their lives there and 400,000 people were displaced, a situation which the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has brought to our attention on many occasions. I visited Darfur, where between 200,000 and 300,000 people have died, 2 million people have been displaced and 90 per cent of the villages have been razed to the ground. Next year Southern Sudan will decide in a referendum whether to secede and become an independent nation. On Tuesday last, at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sudan, of which I am acting chairman, we considered the implications of secession. Again and again, contributors warned that security questions are the most crucial issue facing Sudan and that people were aching for peace and security—a phrase used by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, who kindly addressed that meeting. I hope that, when the Minister replies, he will tell us what we are doing to help prepare Sudan for post-referendum challenges, not least the danger of a slide back into conflict. One Sudanese contributor remarked that if border and territorial questions are not resolved, it risks repeating the tragedy of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In both Sudan and DRC I have been struck by the lack of resources—food, water, medicines—matched by the seemingly inexhaustible supply of small arms and weapons. A thousand people die each day, victims of small arms; 95 per cent of the Kalashnikov rifles used in these conflicts come from outside Africa. Conflicts are estimated to cost African economies an average of $18 billion a year—desperately needed money which could solve the HIV/AIDS crisis, prevent TB and malaria or provide clean water, sanitation and education.

I have introduced a small Private Member’s Bill, the Re-Export Controls Bill, which received its First Reading on 22 May and has the support of the charity Saferworld. One of its trustees is the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who spoke earlier, and, in another place, the right honourable Tom Clarke MP, who has promised that, if it succeeds here, he will take it through its stages there. The UK’s export controls regime is one of the best in the world, but on this particular issue the UK is behind the curve. The US, France, Germany, Sweden, and many other countries, all use some kind of no re-export without permission clause. In other words, arms from the UK are sold to other countries, which then sell them on into these areas of conflict. We are wrong to resist a belt and braces provision, as we have done thus far, when other principal European Governments have felt it necessary to enact such provisions. I hope to rectify this situation and that the Minister will feel able to support this small Bill. Unless we resolve Africa’s conflicts, stop the flow of arms and develop a secure environment, our aid programmes will continue to be ineffectual.

The desperate need for development is self-evident. I could give the House statistics, but it has already heard many. However, I shall mention just two. In eastern DRC more than 31,400 children are said to have been identified as having acute malnutrition and have been treated, and another 100,000 children are in need of treatment. These children have often been left orphaned as a result of the conflict. Indeed, there are said to be 4 million orphaned children in the DRC today. In the east of the country there have been waves of explosive violence, as the right reverend Prelate said. In north and south Kivu, the FDLR—Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda—continue to maraud. As they displace terrified people, the refugees become fodder for the competing militias. Many refugees are reluctant to return to Rwanda, where a journalist was killed just a fortnight ago, where the opposition has not been allowed to register, and where there has recently been more net migration out of the country than into it. I have admired much that Rwanda has achieved, but in praising its achievements we must be careful not to deceive ourselves about the challenges it still faces in creating a stable and inclusive society.

Many of the 100,000 refugees in the east of the Congo are of Rwandan origin. Kinshasa has tried divide and rule. The divide has worked but the rule has not. At the latest count, a mushrooming of local factions has seen the emergence of 22 different factions. One recent survey, as the right reverend Prelate said, found that 60 per cent of people felt less safe than they did a year ago.

I will end by mentioning the LRA. Since 2008, a military offensive has been under way. I find it extraordinary that Joseph Kony, against whom there is an ICC arrest warrant outstanding, has not been brought to justice. I hope that the Minister will tell us what more can be done to bring him to justice and to end the culture of impunity.

I will also mention the recent killing of human rights defender Floribert Chebeya, about whom the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, answered some of my questions earlier in the week. It is not enough simply to have an internal Congolese inquiry into his death. MONUSCO, too, should be invited to put in hand an inquiry. I hope that the noble Lord will raise that question with them.

Throughout this region of Africa, there has been a culture of impunity. What have we done to encourage the Congolese to extradite Bosco Ntaganda, for whom there is also an ICC warrant outstanding, or to persuade the Government of Rwanda to bring to trial Laurent Nkunda, captured in January of last year, as well as Joseph Kony, whom I mentioned?

In conclusion, as the Congo looks back over 50 deadly years since it gained independence, its people need protection and stability. This will require security sector reform, the disarmament of militias and the restoration of authority based on the rule of law. It is said that the world is growing weary of the endless conflict in the Congo. However tired the world may be, for the sake of the Congolese people we need to remain alert to the country's suffering and engaged with its plight—for the sake of young women like Juliet, whom I mentioned earlier. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to say more about what the international community is doing to end the depredations of the LRA.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Chidgey for opening this fascinating debate in which I have learnt a lot. I have spent my professional career much more on a broader Europe than on a broader Africa. We have certainly spread our debate across Africa, from Zimbabwe to Somalia.

I particularly welcome the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. My namesake and good friend wishes me to say, in particular, that he apologises very much that he is unable to be here today. He had indeed sent me the article from Scotland on Sunday on the virtues of a coalition Government, and I hope that the noble Lord will ensure that it is circulated on all Labour Benches. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote another short section of the article, where the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, asks,

“can a pragmatic deal between two previously warring tribes really work for the benefit of the country?”.

His answer is:

“I would argue that, if managed properly, coalition can produce strong, stable government and deliver transformative public policy”.

I thank him for that constructive remark.

I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Avebury is not able to be with us. I have always regarded him as the one person on the Liberal Democrat Benches who knows even more about Africa than my noble friend Lord Chidgey. I very much hope that he will be back with us soon.

This is an area where there is a huge amount of cross-party consensus. The coalition Government have been in office now for almost two months. We have taken up and hope to build on the contributions and achievements of our predecessors. The United Kingdom is one of the largest donors to all the countries in eastern and central Africa, a record that we are proud to inherit from our predecessors and intend to maintain. This Government have committed themselves to fulfilling our commitments in the millennium goals and to reaching 0.7 per cent of GNP as development assistance in difficult circumstances. I trust that even the most tribalist of Labour’s haters of the new coalition Government will grant us credit for that.

Having said all that, we note that some other Governments have fallen far short and that, sadly, a number of other members of the G8 and beyond do not share Britain’s sense of global responsibility. We also note that British NGOs are among the most active and constructive all the way across this troubled region. There are of course limits to what the United Kingdom can achieve on its own, so we have to work as closely as we can with others both bilaterally and within multilateral groups. We are working in the DRC with two EU missions to train the army and to improve the quality of the police. We are providing finance for the various UN missions in the area. We recognise that co-ordination between those UN missions across frontiers has not always been entirely effective. These are separate missions, which are separately constituted, but we are doing our best to consult our EU partners about how that co-ordination can be improved. We are working as a member of the international contact group on the Great Lakes of Africa, a grouping of donor countries and organisations, which includes, apart from the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, France, Netherlands, the UN and the European Union. We are doing our best in this immensely complicated area.

As has been mentioned, we need to co-opt others as well, including the Arab League, the Indians, who are, after all, one of the largest providers of UN peacekeeping forces in the area, and, even as far as we can, the Chinese, who are themselves beginning to discover the difficulties of working in the area, the risks to their citizens and the dangers of corruption to Chinese economic interests in the field.

The emphasis that my noble friend Lord Chidgey made in his speech was very much on stabilisation. We all of us recognise the links between security, good governance—or indeed government as such—human rights and social and economic development. However, we also all recognise the obstacles to effective delivery. The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, asked if we could ensure that no aid falls into the wrong hands. I regret to say—I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, would agree—that no British Government can ensure that no aid falls into the wrong hands. We can put in the best monitoring efforts possible in the hope of minimising how much goes astray, and work with Transparency International, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and others to try to prevent leakage out to accounts in offshore financial centres, which we are all well aware goes on. The despoiling of the mineral riches of the region, in particular of the DRC, is something against which we all have to operate. That has to be done on an active multilateral international organisation level.

Whether our priorities are for direct budget support, as we have done in the DRC, or in micropolicies at the local level, we run into some difficulties. Some time ago my son was teaching at a school in south-western Uganda. Money to pay the teachers at the school had simply not come through for several months. One can work at the microlevel but things occasionally break down.

How far does security need to come first? The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, suggested that we need to be very careful about involving the military, although the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester remarked that security is the absolute key to development in the DRC. There are some real tensions here which, again, the new Government are exploring and discussing how one provides security as the basis for economic and political development. Again on a personal level, last year, while one of my nieces was in southern Darfur working with a British charity, my wife and I developed an extremely active interest in local security, kidnapping and all the other problems. If there is no security on the ground, one cannot begin to provide either emergency aid or the other dimensions, such as education and assistance in economic development, which are necessary.

Delivering effective stabilisation across the region is an extremely complex task. The quality of governance across the region is also very mixed. It is a sad reflection on the quality of government across Africa, but the Mo Ibrahim prize for heads of government who have stepped down in Africa has not been awarded this year because too many are managing to fix their elections so that they can stay on.

We all of us recognise, and we have to inform our public, that this is not just a matter of idealism. There is strong British self-interest in the stabilisation of the region. We have a Somali population in this country which is somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000. It has arrived in Britain partly because of the collapse of that country. We have somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 Congolese refugees. We are conscious that if the security situation in some other countries in the region were to deteriorate further, there would be strong pressure from the educated, from those across the region with links to this country, to come to Britain as well. We therefore have strong interests in providing stability, security and effective government across the region. I share the right reverend Prelate’s fears that, while we have to work hard to improve matters, we risk conflict reappearing across the region as Southern Sudan moves towards independence and as the situation in the eastern DRC appears not yet to be improving.

Perhaps I may say a little about the Lord’s Resistance Army and the about the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that we really should have caught Joseph Kony before now. The noble Lord will be aware that it has taken a great deal of time to apprehend a number of war criminals in the western Balkans in rather more open country and a rather smaller space. These things are not entirely easy. The LRA has been operating across the borders of four countries in which the level of security, information and intelligence is very low. While we may work to encourage closer co-operation among the armed forces of Uganda, Congo and Southern Sudan, this is a necessarily difficult task.

Mention has been made of what is happening in Somalia. We recognise that while Somaliland is, relatively speaking, a haven of stability within this very troubled country, southern Somalia is a source of active concern to all of us. Her Majesty’s Government are providing support to the African Union for its force there. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked what will happen if Sudan does vote for independence—and indeed that is the great question of conflict prevention for all of us at the present time. Her Majesty’s Government are providing the region with emergency aid and assistance so far as we can, and I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, that the UK is providing about half of its £140 million development assistance for 2010 to Southern Sudan to build governmental capacity and that we are also doing our best to assist in the remote regions of east Sudan and the Abyei area. But she will know better than me that none of this is easy in the troubled circumstances and in some of those extremely remote areas. Sudan is the largest country in Africa, even larger than the DRC. We are working with the Government of Southern Sudan to improve the quality and capability of both the police force and the army, and we are consulting other EU Governments on how we can better work with them to manage to catch up with the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Other noble Lords mentioned the situation in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, while one or two even touched on the question of Kenya. We were troubled about the presidential elections in Burundi, which appear to have been blocked by the withdrawal of the opposition and by fears as to how fair those elections would be. Noble Lords will know that the British Government are represented on the ground more strongly in Rwanda than in Burundi, but we do have a liaison mission in Burundi, along with an aid programme. Again, we are working with partners to see what we can do to help.

The situation in Kenya also raises concerns. As Members of this House will know, for a long period the British High Commission has brought to the attention of the Kenyan Government allegations of corruption, and concerns about the extent to which the elite are living off the country and on occasion promoting intertribal rivalries in order to further their own case. We remain actively concerned and engaged in a constant dialogue with the Government of Kenya. So the British Government’s response is clear. I should say that this is not a collection of new initiatives by the coalition Government rather, that we have inherited from our predecessors a worthwhile set of policies. Naturally we are reviewing them, but we do not intend fundamentally to alter them. We hope that the Government’s new National Security Council will provide for a greater coherence of effort.

The Foreign Secretary, in a speech last week, talked about the closer integration of the international departments, in particular the efforts of the Foreign Office and DfID and, where necessary, the Ministry of Defence. The MoD has only a few personnel in these various countries in training roles. Where we can, we want to work with local forces bilaterally and with the African Union to improve the quality of those local forces, but on occasion the UN and others will have to assist. The Government’s Stabilisation Unit, owned by the three departments, is an invaluable source of expertise and is actively engaged with this area. So Her Majesty’s Government are addressing all these difficult issues.

Somalia remains an enormous concern. Perhaps we should recognise that we wish to involve countries that have not shared responsibilities in Africa. The Chinese Government are taking an active part in anti-piracy operations off Somalia and are now co-operating with the multilateral command, so others are being called in. The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia remain sadly weak. We are doing what we can to assist, both financially and in helping them to build a broader coalition for peace and stability. We will remain a significant bilateral donor in Sudan, and that will continue to require immense resources, particularly in Southern Sudan, for the foreseeable future.

We contribute approximately £207 million a year to the Democratic Republic of Congo both bilaterally and through multilateral UN and EU commitments. DfID is now conducting a careful review of both bilateral and multilateral programmes, including which partners we should prefer to work with, as any new Government should, and we expect to have the outcome of that review later this year. There is a parallel review across departments on how best to ensure that sufficient emphasis is given to violence against women, and we hope that that will come to a review later in the year.

Over the next four years, the United Kingdom will provide £1 billion for regional programming across this area. We are of course concerned that weak governance and corruption in all of these countries hampers development and increases longer-term threats to stability. We recognise that NGOs, British and others, have a useful role to play in all this, but we are also painfully aware from experience on the ground that some NGOs get across each other and that when too many different organisations compete with each other, that can add to the problems, as on occasion they have in Darfur. So far as any Government can, we have to encourage NGOs in the field to work together.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester remarked that religion can be a force for reconciliation, as sadly it has proved so often to be a force for division across the region. We are immensely grateful for the useful role played by the Church of England and other churches in the area. Incidentally, as part of my briefing I was told that Muslim Aid is one of the most effective and positive NGOs in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Interfaith operations are precisely the sort of thing we need to be encouraging.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, could I remind the noble Lord of the question I put to him about the re-export of arms Bill sponsored by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and what he has to say about the flow of arms? I would be grateful if he could write to us about that question, as well as about the culture of impunity. I ask this because, unlike Joseph Kony, others have been caught and arrested, but not brought to trial. I mentioned some specific cases, including the recent killing of a human rights activist in the DRC.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I would be happy to write to the noble Lord about those issues. Indeed, I was briefed on some of them but within the period it is not possible to cover all these areas.

On the question of the arms trade, legal and illegal, the AK 47s that he mentioned do not come from Britain. As the noble Lord knows, they are actively traded across the region and are in sufficient surplus to be relatively cheap. So it is not simply a question of arms re-exports and arms controls, but of how we manage to gain some sort of handle on the illegal trade which goes on across the region.

I would like to thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I recognise the valuable work done by a number of Members of this Chamber in and across the region, and by encouraging others to contribute and NGOs to work together. I look forward to continuing debates in this House, but I hope not with a deteriorating security problem across the region.